​I read about the decision to postpone Championship Horse Racing until 2020 and greeted the news with genuine disappointment. Not because I was looking forward to witnessing the concept in action but because I had hoped by now everyone involved in the idea had realised what a really stupid idea it is. If it were not for City Street Racing, C.H.R. would be the dumbest gig in town. City Street Racing, by the way, is an accident waiting to happen. 4-furlong races on an artificial surface mounted on nothing more permanent than sophisticated wooden pallets, with the public close by and in an urban environment must have death and injury lurking with the intensity of the Grim Reaper. The thinking behind it is simple; if it works for athletics it surely must be equally profitable if racehorses were used. Sprinters, I ask you. 4-furlongs is not even an acceptable distance under the rules of racing. And 4-furlongs will hardly tax most sprinters and a run-down area of another 3 or 4 furlongs will be required for the jockeys to get their mounts back under control. It is novelty nonsense that bears no relation to present day racing and as such offers poor advertising value.
But to return to C.H.R.
I suspect the reason for delaying C.H.R. is down to the not insignificant fact that they cannot find enough people in support of the concept. 12 teams of 8 horses will take a large slice out of the horse population at a period of the year where there is a multitude of racing. Field sizes at meetings outside of C.H.R. will be reduced and jockeys signed up to C.H.R. will on many Thursday evenings be compromised, contractually required to one meeting when their bread and butter supporters would wish them somewhere else.
My main problem with C.H.R. is this. Oh, and I am aware the goal of the concept is to get people who would not ordinarily attend a race-meeting interested in the sport. But that in itself is problematical. C.H.R. is not proper racing. It is not representative of the sport. Just say C.H.R. is a rip-roaring success. For arguments sake lets assume they achieve 12 teams of 8 horses, with the top jockeys signed up and racecourses bursting at the seams with people at first curious and latterly fascinated with the product on offer.
If at the end of ‘The Series’, as it is dubiously titled’, we have several thousand converts to our sport, what will they make of an ordinary day’s racing at Newbury or Salisbury. The team they have supported will no longer exist and if they go ahead with the idea of having all races in ‘The Series’ hands and heels, (the only redeeming feature of the whole stupid concept) aren’t these converts going to be mortified to see their ‘heroes’ picking up the whip and cracking their mounts seven or eight times in the final furlong?
As I have said over and over again, if Royal Ascot, the Derby and Glorious Goodwood do not float the boat of these mythical people out there that we hope to convert, then is it not overly optimistic to expect C.H.R. to be the magic bullet we are seeking?
Much is made of C.H.R. being inspired by Formula 1. Yet Formula 1 is universally considered boring, with one team winning race after race. If this should equate to ‘The Series’ 1/3 favourites will win the majority of the races.
The proposers of C.H.R. claim their concept will put 4-million quid in the coffers of racing, which is money sorely needed with the contribution from the Levy on the slide. But as sure as eggs are eggs the largest slice of this largesse will fall into the pockets of the super wealthy owners who can either afford to keep their lesser horses in training for the eight meetings comprising ‘The Series’ or buy horses specially to farm the prize money. It is said that as horses with mid to low ratings will race in ‘The Series’ smaller owners will accrue the greatest benefit. Poppycock, say I. Godolphin and Juddmonte have plenty of horses in this lower bracket, all of which will be bred in the purple.
I understand the need, the urgent need, I suspect, to encourage more people to take an active interest in our sport, it’s just off the wall concepts are not the paths to take. Make all the bread and butter meetings, which do not attract large attendance anyway, free entry. Or organise free coach trips from cities and towns to local race-meetings. Have a Super-Bet every Saturday to rival the National Lottery, a concept people are becoming disillusioned with. Partner with a National newspaper (not the Racing Post) and give a horse and free training for a year as a prize in a horse racing inspired competition.
I am sure there are people more gifted in marketing and promotion who could come up with better ideas than I can provide. But every one of my suggestions is better than either City Street Racing or C.H.R.
For Pities Sake; in partnering with these hare-brained ideas racing stakeholders are saying to the public ‘our sport is broken’. Yet the attendances at Cheltenham (and not only the Festival), Aintree, Epsom, Royal Ascot, Carlisle Bell & Cumberland Plate Day, Cartmel, Shergar Cup Day, etc, suggest the opposite is the truer reflection. Sell our core sport to the public, not some novelty nonsense that will be, at best, a one-hit wonder.

​At the next big get-together of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals a motion will be put-forward to extend the charity’s aims to seeking a ban on Angling and Horse Racing. To help succeed in this aim the radicals within the society wish to halve the number of people at the high table, thereby lessening opposition to their take-over of the charity.
It is not a given that the motion will have enough support to become R.S.P.C.A. policy. Though the idea that such a charitable organisation must debate the subject of banning one of the most popular pastimes in the country, perhaps the world, and one of the country’s leading sports, both legal and money-earners for the exchequer, is alarming enough to give any one of us nightmares.
Perhaps it is wishful thinking on my part, but there seems an element of self-destruction in proposing a ban on either angling or horse racing as both are popular with both the Royal Family and large sections of the social classes. I cannot believe the Queen, a major owner and breeder of racehorses, would allow the charity royal patronage if they begin to campaign to have her favourite pastime banned. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was considered an oddity when first conceived and it was only with royal approval and the appendage of Royal in its title was it taken seriously. To attempt to lay siege to the Monarch’s great sporting joy will only harm the reputation of the R.S.P.C.A.
To wish to have angling outlawed seems also to be a quick and easy way to harm donations and lessen the good work carried out by the charity. Angling is a pastime for everyone; as with horse racing it is an activity that brings together all layers of society, even if in the main it can be described as a working-class activity. I am not an angler myself and I dare say there is, as there always will be no matter what the sport or pastime, people who bring it into disrepute. But from what I read and hear about anglers they are countryman at heart, with an abiding interest in keeping waterways clean and healthy for the fish to which they are home.
And of course, and here I must speak mainly of horse racing as that is where my experience lies, there is no inherent cruelty to concern the R.S.P.C.A. If there were any animal welfare issues the sport would be defending itself on almost a daily basis in the law courts. No animal is better cared for than the racehorse. If it were not for the thoroughbred industry veterinary care around the world would not be as advanced as it is.
We are, though, in a precarious position and cannot take this proposed threat lightly. The unfortunate and accidental deaths of horses whilst in training and on the racecourse cannot with the best will in the world be reduced below present levels. We all wish broken legs could be healed as they are with humans. We wish no horse would collapse as a result of heart failure. But these things do occur and always will do. We cannot escape the inescapable.
But we can improve the image of the sport by restricting, even more severely than the present rules allow, use of the whip, and when a jockey transgresses the rules, whether it be seven strokes, three strokes of none at all, the he/she and the horse should be disqualified. Everyone from the stable staff to the trainer, owner and jockey are part of one team. In a football match if a goal is scored by a player who has improved his position by fouling a defender or by handball the goal is disallowed and the whole team shares the punishment. It needs to be the same in horse racing. Personally, I believe there should be a trial period when ‘hands and heels’ races for professional riders should be tested, with a date in the near-future selected for racing in this country to become either no strokes at all or one stroke limit. The opposition is circling.
And though we may have differing views on Michael Gove, to my mind he is about to increase the maximum punishment for cruelty to animals from a ludicrous 6-months to 5-years imprisonment. Is there any real difference between hitting a dog, for instance, seven-times with a whip and hitting a horse a similar number? One day a Law Lord might decide there isn’t.
Do I think the danger is close at hand? No. Horse racing is a good little earner for the exchequer both from betting and in exports. It is an industry where we lead the world. It is why once we leave the E.U. the thoroughbred industry will be given dispensation to carry on as normal. Angling, too, is safe, at least for a good length of time. But we should be one step ahead of the mob. They got hunting banned, remember, and that’s not coming back any day soon. They were complacent. They believed once the Conservatives were in power life would resume as they had always known it. They were wrong
Hopefully the good men and women of the R.S.P.C.A. will recognise the jeopardy of siding with radicals and throw out the motion. But that will not make the threat disappear. The whip issue must be addressed and addressed in the very near future. It is the greatest weakness in our defence of horse welfare within the industry.

​I enjoy racing books that remind me of horses part-forgotten and the names of jockeys, owners and trainers who accompanied me through my adolescent years. At the advanced age I have now arrived at I am liable to forget even the name of this website and can have the devil’s own job of recalling who won the Derby last year, which, sad as it is, doesn’t appal me as much as forgetting the names and achievements of the racing greats, such as Scobie Breasley.
I am telling no untruths when I say that it was only on finding Christopher Poole’s commendable biography of Scobie at the on-line equine bookshop of the National Equestrian Centre that the great Australian jockey resurfaced in my memory. This is a jockey who was a contemporary of Lester Piggott both as he emerged from short trousers and when he was stitching into racing folklore the legend he has become. Yet before Lester was even born Scobie was winning big races in his native Australia, with 5 Caulfield Cups to his name. He rode throughout the 2nd World War, spared the call-up to arms because of an injury to his jaw from a racing falls a few weeks earlier.
Born on the 7th of May 1914 in the delightfully named town of Wagga Wagga, Arthur Edward, to give him his christened forenames, had no other ambition for himself but to follow his father on to the racetrack. On the no-holds barred country tracks of New South Wales he had to learn both the art of race-riding as well as what might be termed ‘the black arts of race-riding’ and as with all of the jockeys from down under I have read about he suffered more than his far share of ‘holidays’ from stewards who on occasion seem to want to achieve little else but ‘send out a message’ to other riders and the public. (After the rather harsh punishment given to Hayley Turner at Royal Ascot last week it seems to be that ‘sending out a message’ remains the chief aim of stewards today)
Scobie rode two of the first Derby winners to enter my consciousness, Charlottown and Santa Claus. Strangely for someone who though perhaps not dominating the riding ranks was one of the top three or more for nearly thirty years, he only rode 4 classic winners, winning the 2,000 and I,000 guineas on one occasion each. He did win, though, an Eclipse, King George and Queen Elisabeth and an Arc and was champion jockey in 1957 and for three years in succession from 1961 to 1963.
When you write down those dates, especially 1957, it is almost as if one is recalling a time so far back in history that there cannot surely be anyone alive today who witnessed racing in those days. It was a time before starting stalls and widespread television coverage, a time when all-weather racing was as unconsidered as men walking on the moon. (If such an adventure actually did occur). A more parochial time, when the sport was both more open to corruption and yet in some undefined way more innocent. A time before the powers-that-be started to mess about with the essence of the sport, when the race to be champion jockey started with the first race of the season and unbelievably ended with the final race of the season. Unlike today, when large chunks of the season are discarded on the grounds that they are ‘inconvenient to the establishment of ‘Champions Day’. I imagine every champion flat jockey from Fred Archer to Scobie rolled in their graves when knowledge of this stupid idea reached the ghosts of permanent pasture.
During the height of his career in Britain, Scobie was one of a number of Australian jockeys riding successfully in this country. Bill Williamson, Ron Hutchinson, George Moore and Garnie Bougoure to name but five others, Scobie being the best of them. Indeed, Scobie Breasley was perhaps one of the best flat jockeys of all time. Unusually, as jockeys do not in the main transfer their talents to the training of racehorses, he was also a very successful trainer, training first from his base at South Hatch, Epsom and then in France and California. when the fancy took Ravi Tikkoo, (owner of Steel Pulse and Hittite Glory) his main patron, to seek success abroad. He finished his training career in Barbados, calling a full-stop to his working life after winning that country’s main race, the Gold Cup, for the fourth time.
I think my fondness for Scobie Breasley and the enjoyment I attained from his biography was because he was at the top of his game in the 1960’s and early 70’s when my interest in flat racing equalled that of National Hunt and I would anticipate with the sort of relish that nowadays only comes naturally for the jumping division of the sport races like the Derby and meetings such as Royal Ascot. His was of a time of 38-runner Lincolns, of 7st 7lb bottom weights, when the large private studs still flourished, when everything was a mite less predictable. A golden age, perhaps. Or is that just a case of ‘Blue Remembered Hills’? Of youthful ignorance continuing to cast a shadow over the mightier glories of the present day and age? And will, in the unlikely event that I survive another twenty years (one might be overly optimistic), will my admiration for Dettori and Moore morph into the sentimentality I seem to reserve for Duncan Keith, Paul Cook, Frankie Durr and others to many to mention? Those were the days, at least I hope they were.

​If anyone should care to corroborate my claim, in the archive of this site there is a piece I posted directly after I.T.V’s first ‘Morning Show’ where I gave the prediction that televised horse racing was in safe hands. In the intervening time I have seen little that has in any way changed that initial view. Yet something came to mind this morning to make me question whether I.T.V. are really being true to the remit of doing everything possible to encourage people to take an interest in our sport.
Without the aid of guests brought in to make up the numbers, I doubt if I.T.V. could staff, at least in front of the cameras, an all-female edition of the ‘Morning Show’, either during the flat or National Hunt season.
Francesca and Sally-Anne, since Hayley Turner unretired once more, are the only female presenters, not forgetting the excellent Alice Plunkett during the winter months. In fact, I.T.V. racing is becoming more and ‘laddish’ as time goes on, which might be a turn-off for a lot of women. (They are not exactly hunks anyone of them) I am not suggesting their presentation of racing is not entertaining and indeed informative but so much of the content has become male orientated and dare I say ‘boorish’. 50% of the world is female and if I.T.V. are to achieve their aim of bringing more people into the sport perhaps they should angle their output at the female audience on more occasions than the annoying ‘glamour and fascinator segments at Royal Ascot. It is not all about which of the chaps is he cleverest tipster, you know.
Which of the male presenters would get the chop if two or three females were recruited in another matter? I doubt if any of them truly deserve demotion to the backwater of the racing channels. But if a ‘night of the long knives’ is in the long-term benefit of our sport then careful pruning must be carried out. If nothing else, it will put the ‘boys’ on their mettle, wouldn’t it?
 
This week, due to favourable contractual arrangements, I.T.V. are able to televise every race over the five days of Royal Ascot, which is quite wonderful for dull old people like me who find the handicaps, and the Queen Alexandria in particular, the most entertaining races of the whole week. I am sure it is the most tiring week of the year for the presenters, trussed-up as they will be in clothes ill-designed for the great outdoors whether it rains or the sun burns down. But like the troopers they are they endure with smiles on their faces.
Of course, all of us would like a similar arrangement for the Cheltenham Festival, which due to unfavourable contractual arrangements they are not permitted to allow us. Perhaps though there is a way around the deadlock that allows the television public to watch every race at the Festival and allow the rights holder to maintain the status quo. What if instead of using the I.T.V. cameras, presenters and commentator, the air-time was given over to the satellite channel, using their cameras, presenters and commentator.
What would be benefit of this, doubtless impossible to implement, arrangement? I.T.V. would be able to advertise coverage of the entirety of the meeting and it would provide free advertising for the satellite channel.
If we are to boost viewing figures and utilise every angle of marketing and promotion of the sport, cooperation of this sort can only be good for everyone involved. The dedicated racing channels may be in competition with terrestrial coverage but should that stop them from cooperating when the direct beneficiary is the sport itself?
 
My hopes for this week at Royal Ascot are that it will rain in just enough quantities to make life difficult for the clothes horses who attend Ascot only to be seen displaying designer clothes fit for nowhere but the catwalk. For sour old buggers like me this always makes for comical viewing, and that by the last race on Saturday the ground will be soft enough for Black Corton to gallop his rivals into submission and provide the excellent Megan Nicholls with a memorable first visit to the great meeting. I suspect he is only running to keep him shape for his tilt at the Galway Plate but his presence at least adds even greater interest to the race I like the most at the meeting. And, despite my cynicism, Royal Ascot is the greatest flat meeting in the world. Which is why ‘Champions Day’ is so irrelevant. The ‘Champions’ get together at Ascot in June, not in late Autumn.

​I remember picking up Sean Magee’s book ‘To Win Just Once’ in Waterstones when it first came out. It was like holding a grenade without its pin. I perused the preface, until confronted by my own name I had no alternative but to replace it on the shelf and leave the store, a guilt that still holds sway over me directing my irrational response.
To be less melodramatic.
Sean Magee would never have written ‘To Win Just Once’ if it was not for me. Fact, not a boast. I am sure the author would not take issue with the statement. Richard Davis, to whom Sean’s book is dedicated, died July 19th, 1996. During the summer and early autumn of 1995 Richard came to Upleadon Farm, where I was then working as a dairyman, to exercise a horse owned by a friend that was at livery there. Upleadon Farm is the family home of the Biddlecombes and I worked for Tony, a former champion amateur jockey and brother of the more famous Terry.
I put the idea to Richard that the racing public might be interested in learning about the ups and downs of a jockey, what has become termed ‘journeyman jockey’, who is not retained by a big stable and riding in all the top races. I told him I only ‘dabbled’ with writing and that I could not make any bold predictions about whether the book would ever be published. Ironically today, with e-book publishing and publish-on-demand I could have promised publication as I could easily self-publish. Anyway, due to the uncertainty of publication I wanted to make the process as less time-consuming for Richard as possible and we agreed he would provide his ‘journal’ in audio form which I would transcribe.
Richard was a humble chap and I don’t think in the first instance he really bought into the idea. To begin with the tapes regularly appeared but after a period of time they became less regular. I now know why. Or suspect I do.
The idea of the book was that Richard’s journal would be interspersed with chapters written by me about the general racing scene.
To return to ‘To Win Just Once’. In the preface, after Sean gives the reader a reminder of the main news of July 19th, there is a paragraph which when I read it a few days ago I found rather upsetting. ‘Four days earlier, on the Monday of that week, I had had lunch with Richard Davis at The Plough in Ford ….. We had been discussing a book project we were cooking up: to work together through the coming season to describe the ups and downs of the life of the ‘ordinary’ jump jockey.’
He goes on to say that would be building on foundations laid in the diary Richard had been keeping the previous season in collaboration with his neighbour. I was that collaborator, though not his neighbour as we lived in different counties. Journalistic licence, I suppose.
I was under the impression, you see, that Richard had told no one about ‘our project’, certainly no one in his family or his friends who contacted me in the aftermath of his death knew of it. Maybe no one also knew of his collaboration with Sean.
You must forgive me but my memory is pretty dire these days and I cannot remember if I gave a copy of my manuscript to Richard’s family and they passed it on to Sean or whether he wrote to me requesting a copy. I vaguely remember having his address written down somewhere. I also wrote a letter of condolence, I suppose, to the Racing Post and they in return asked to publish an excerpt, which I agreed to, selecting a few pages that showed more of Richard’s good character than my scribblings.
Eventually, as it was quite obvious no one in racing or publishing was prepared to help ‘our’ book see the light of day, I agreed to meet Sean at the home of Richard’s parents. Thinking back, as is forced upon me by writing this piece, I remember him emphasising the need to put ‘mud on the page’ – to give the book a hook to hang publicity on, I suppose – though I see no ‘mud’ in the book he ended up writing with help from Guy Lewis, one of Richard’s closest friends. I doubt if I said at the time, but wouldn’t the horrible fact that Richard died during the writing process be an adequate amount of ‘mud’?
I could have been obstinate and insisted it was ‘my book or no book’ but that isn’t who I am. I had enjoyed writing the book and I am pleased and honoured to have met Richard, and a little bit happy to have met Sean, who I bear no animosity to, and in the drawer of my desk I have a copy of the manuscript, proof of all I claim. And my only real concern was for the Davis family and that Richard was given a fitting memorial. So, I withdrew and allowed Sean, who after all could promise publication, to fulfil a task that was beyond my means.
I am not one to blow my own trumpet, even if I possessed a trumpet to blow, but I think my book, the pattern of which ‘To Win Just Once’ is a near carbon copy, is the more readable of the two. I think I was far more on Richard’s side than Sean was on Guy’s. But then I would think that, wouldn’t I?
And: I know one fact about Richard that is not mentioned in Sean’s book and if you were to buy a copy of my self-published collection of horse racing short stories ‘Going To The Last’ and read the story ‘Second Consideration’ you might figure out what that fact is.
Richard’s death had a huge effect on me, the echoes of which still stall me as both a writer and a human being. Every facet of my brief association with Richard was beyond my control. As ‘the writer’ I should have taken control of the process instead of giving Richard free rein to supply me with what he considered appropriate. After his death I could not bring to fruition something I was desperate to achieve – to make good a promise I had not made, for his sake, for the sake of his family. All through I felt like a very small fish in a shark-infested huge ocean. It remains the way I feel today. But then again, I live to write again.
 

​My reaction to this year’s Derby was that the first five home were all good quality 1-mile 4-furlong horses. Of course, 1-mile 4-furlongs is no longer the sexy distance for high-flying international breeders. To the Americans 1-mile 2-furlongs is stretching things a bit tight and to win a top race over a mile is a much surer sign of speed and class. Of course, the colt that can prove itself the top miler and yet have the stamina to win over a trip 2-furlongs further is considered the paradigm when it comes to marketing a stallion to potential breeders. It is why the Prince of Wales Stakes at Royal Ascot has become a more important race than the 2-furlongs further Hardwick Stakes and why last season’s Derby winner Masar runs in the former rather than the latter, even though he has no form over the shorter distance.
If I have my facts right, it seems the first five at Epsom are booked to lock horns again in the Irish Derby where it will be a pin in the paper job to pick which of the five will come out on top at the Curragh. Greater racing minds than I, Matt Chapman for instance, is of the opinion that Madhmoon and Sir Dragonet would be better campaigned over the shorter distance. Quite why he has formed this opinion is rather hard to fathom. Perhaps he overheard a conversation in a racecourse bar to that effect and thought it worth airing with the public.
The proverbial cigarette paper would have covered the five at Epsom, yet two of them were wilting to the effect that it is presumed a drop back in trip will bring about startling improvement. I don’t see how anyone could form such a conclusion. Sir Dragonet, even though he has run only three times to date, ran by far his best race at Epsom. His Chester run has very little merit apart from the obvious fact that after running very green he managed to scoot clear of his rivals. Madhmoon got closer to winning a classic at Epsom than he did in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket and though he might go on to win either an Irish or British Champion Stakes over the 1-mile 2, that will in no way make true the claim that he isn’t a true 1-mile 4 horse. I recall David Elsworth commenting after Barnbrook Again had finished second at Kempton behind his illustrious stable-mate Desert Orchid, when the gentlemen of the press were of the opinion the horse didn’t stay the 3-miles, ‘he stayed better than the horses he beat!’
I would not be a bit surprised at the Curragh if the first five at Epsom finish in the reverse order, though I remain committed to Japan proving by the end of the season that he is the best of this season’s crop of Coolmore 3-year-olds.
In days of yore, the twenties and thirties, it was not unusual for a horse to win over a mile at Royal Ascot and turn out next in the St.Leger at Doncaster and proving equally effective. In those days a horse might run in the Cambridgeshire and the Cesarewitch in the same season. Has the thoroughbred so altered that in our time a horse has an optimum distance and to race over any other distance would see it at a serious disadvantage? Or are races today run differently in some way?
I believe the determining factor is that flat racing has become far more of a business or investment opportunity rather than a pure sport. Defeat for a stallion prospect is as close to a financial disaster as the financial markets crashing and trainers must ensure the valuable charges in their care must at the end of the three or four-year-old careers be as stain-proof as is humanly possible and to this end are unwilling to take undue risk.
In my estimation, and to many others, Frankel was either the best flat horse of my lifetime or the second-best. The question though would be moot if they had thrown the dice a further time and kept him in training as a five-year-old as he would have proved twice as effective over 1-mile 4 as he was over the shorter distances that comprised his racing career. Perhaps if the ground had not gone soft the great horse would have run in the Arc or if Sir Henry was not so desperately ill, he might not have been retired at the end of his 4-year-old season. If, buts and maybes, I know.
And that in essence is the true difference between the sport of flat racing of yesteryear and today. In days past owners and trainers were of the mind to discover the limits of ability of their horses, whereas today it is all about commercial considerations and what is to come rather than the here and now.

​Anyone who trawls through what is becoming an extended archive of this site will be aware that I am supportive of female jockeys. In an overly competitive sporting market, I feel horse racing, the flat especially, is making a great oversight in not acknowledging that 50% of the world’s population is female and that there should be a limited amount of positive discrimination to have that figure represented on the racecourse. To this effect I have suggested (I would like to claim to have campaigned but as a muted voice in the wilderness it would be too big a boast) there should be a major flat race restricted to professional female jockeys from all around the world. This should be the most valuable race anywhere in the world restricted to female riders. I believe such a race would be very well supported by the public.
Over the jumps, of course, this kind of positive discrimination is not required. Bryony Frost is the most popular jockey riding, perhaps greater loved than even Frankie Dettori. And Rachael Blackmore has brought a whole new dimension to racing in Ireland over the past two seasons. It is true, though not in the case of Rachael Blackmore, that female jump jockeys benefit from family alliances. Although Bryony has gained her fame through riding for Paul Nicholls and Neil King, her father is a trainer and she was brought up able to ride whenever she wanted to. Lucy Alexander would not be where she is without her father holding a trainer’s licence and the same can be said for Lizzie Kelly, the most underrated jockey in the country by my estimation, and her stepfather. Bridget Andrews would perhaps still be an amateur if it was not for the support of Harry Skelton and her soon-to-be brother-in-law Dan.
These family alliances are not apparent on the flat. What Hayley Turner, Josephine Gordon, Nicola Currie, Holly Doyle and others have achieved is perhaps more commendable because they do not enjoy the leg-up of having a parent holding a trainers’ licence.
What has to said is that where jockeys are self-employed sportsman, the people who employ them are not sportsmen but very similar to a C.E.O. of a multi-million-pound business. When Sir Michael Stoute is dressed in his cricket-whites he is most definitely a sportsman but as boss of Freemason Lodge he is charged with ensuring maximum earnings for the people who pay him to win races with their racehorses. If Ryan Moore is available his clients will feel cheated if he were to employ Hayley, Nicola or male jockeys with a similar score in the jockeys table.
Where the situation is wrong, where flat racing is shooting itself in the foot, is when a female jockey is jocked-off a horse they have consistently ridden in favour of a male jockey when that horse is upped in grade. It is also lamentable when the excuse is made that the female jockey lacks experience in big races. Well, they always will if no one gives them the opportunity to sample what its like to be at the sharp end of a major race.
I greatly admire Hayley Turner. This sport, let alone her female colleagues, owe her a debt the sport is slow in repaying. When the next history of flat racing is produced her achievements will be documented. She has won the equivalent of 3 Group 1’s yet next week at Ascot she will be lucky a have a single ride. My only problem with Hayley is that she is too darn nice, too easily accepting the status quo. It was a disgrace last week in Paris when the ladies French Open semi-finals were held on an outside court in the rain and wind at ten in the morning and it is equally dishonouring to the female sex that no female jockey at Royal Ascot next week will ride any horse with anything like a half-decent chance of winning.
Remember the stir Bryony caused at Cheltenham this year. Front page of The Times and Telegraph and she did not even win one of National Hunt’s holy grail races. Imagine the response if a female rider won the Ascot Gold Cup, the Derby, or any of the classics. The question in today’s Racing Post is when will a female jockey win a race at Royal Ascot. It is over thirty years since Gay Kelleway won the Queen Alexandria on a horse trained by her father and no female in the intervening years has sampled a similar triumph.
It was notable last week that though Nicola Currie rides the majority of Jamie Osborne’s horses, when Lust For Life ran at Newcastle with the express purpose of acquiring a winner’s penalty to get him into the Royal Hunt Cup, even though she was at the meeting, it was Jamie Spencer who was entrusted with the ride. The horse didn’t win, by the way. Now, I don’t know if Nicola is stable jockey and if she is whether it is part of the riding agreement that on occasion she will be replaced by a more senior jockey. But how is Jamie Osborne, his owners or the betting public ever going to know if Nicola Currie can deliver when the chips are down if she is denied the opportunity?
It is all very well for Hayley to say that as her younger female colleagues gain race-riding experience they will eventually be given better quality horses to ride in better quality races but in her own long career how often has she been given those opportunities? Her win-to-loss ratio in Group 1’s must be better than any of the top male jockeys yet it is many years since she was last seen in a Group race of any kind. Hayley should have been the Bryony of flat racing. It is too late for her now. Let’s hope one of the others emulate on the flat what their counterparts are achieving over jumps.

​A while back a friend offered to lend me his copy of ‘Giving a Little Back’, Nick Townsend’s biography of Barney Curley. I turned away the offer with the excuse that I already had a bundle of books to read and not enough time to do them justice. It may well have been the unvarnished truth. At present I have three books waiting for me once I have finished the current book that helps send me to sleep at night. But in truth I just didn’t fancy Barney Curley as subject matter. Barney Curley, or so I believed, lived amongst the more undesirable characters of the sport; in the shadows, undercover, the gamble of far more importance to him than the sport.
In part, I suspect, my assessment of him is correct. He also is rarely seen without a cigarette in his mouth and he looks for all the world like an aging spiv. On the whole, though, I am wrong to besmirch his character. He might even be one of the good guys in the world.
I am wrong, on occasion. I admit to it. But then Barney Curley goes out of his way to create false impressions, to put people on the back foot. Barney Curley may have a good heart but he allows only the privileged to glimpse his good and kindly spirit.
While successful gambles or coups are thought of these days as something undesirable, gambles plotted and landed in days gone by are considered as ‘great stories to tell’, nostalgia for a time gone, to never return. The Druid’s Lodge Confederacy and in particular how Hackler’s Pride won the 1903 Cambridgeshire is a tale written about with awe and respect, even though it involved ‘getting one over the bookies by way fraud and deception. The career of that notable trainer Barry Hills would perhaps never have got off the ground but for one big winning bet, Frankincense in the 1968 Lincoln, though that comes under the category of gamble as opposed to the perhaps illegal coup of my first example.
Although either despised or held in fear and no little respect by the bookmaking fraternity and held up as a hero of the working man by punters, Barney Curley is undoubtedly an individual the like of which we shall never see again in racing, and in Nick Townsend’s book on the two triumphal gambles of his life, ‘The Sure Thing’, the intricacy of his character is rolled out with the reverence accorded to men of state or church. The book, worth seeking out and reading, certainly changed my opinion of Curley, even if my thoughts on gambling remain as entrenched as ever.
There should be a film made of Curley’s life or at least the aspect of it that involves the ‘Yellow Sam’ Bellewstown gamble or the extraordinary May 2010 Yankee that must have torn the heart out of the bookmaking fraternity, achieving what he did at the expense of a system that should have prevented at source the size of pay-out they had to endure.
The Yellow Sam gamble was only possible because Curley knew that back in 1975 there was only one public telephone at Bellewstown, the only means of racecourse bookmakers had of knowing what was going on in the betting shops around the country. By having someone occupying the telephone in the thirty minutes leading up to ‘off-time’ Curley was able to keep the starting price of his horse Yellow Sam at 20-1. It was audacious. It was a proper gamble as previous to this race Yellow Sam had never troubled the judge. Curley troubled the bookmakers that day, though, and to the tune of 300,000 Irish pounds. The equivalent of £2.5 million or close to it in today’s money.
He won a heap more in 2010, an operation conducted with military precision, with three out of four horses winning around the country, with no individual bet laid of more than £50.
Curley being Curley, though, decided to walk away from racing and landing monster gambles to concentrate on his charity Direct Aid For Africa (DAFA), his great hope for getting into heaven, to paraphrase his own words. That’s the thing about Curley, you categorise him as nothing more than a gambler, then you read not one, not two, but a host of testimonials from people who trust him 100%, who will not say a word that is ill about him. Frankie Dettori claims Curley took him to one side and told him in no uncertain terms that he risked throwing away his career if he continued to live the high-life of clubs, drink and associating with people who might not exactly be his friends. Tom Queally, Jamie Spencer, Dennis O’Regan, Declan Murphy and others all have Barney Curley to thank for his support and fatherly guidance.
I don’t know if any bookmakers will find their way into heaven but I expect St. Peter will put in a good word for Barney Curley, a darkly lit individual with a heart aglow with good deeds.
 

​Next to the Punchestown Festival, I would guess the next most looked-forward-to race-meeting in Ireland is the Galway Festival, which this year starts on Monday July 27th and continues for the following six days. It is claimed the Galway Festival is part horse racing, part seven-day party.
You would think in this day and age that during the summer a flat meeting would highlight the summer race programme. But no, it is Galway and its mixture of National Hunt and flat that rules supreme. If Ruby Walsh is going to have withdrawal symptoms it will be attending Galway, watching Paul Townsend win race after race.
Britain, of course, has a multitude of festivals throughout the summer, starting with Royal Ascot, and then Goodwood, with York and Doncaster to follow. But do any of these socially highflying gatherings compare to the more relaxed Galway, a proper working man’s festival?
Though one should never attempt to out-shine an original, I do think something of sorts could be attempted on these shores. Not a seven-day binge, of course. How do the Galway ground staff keep the racing surface fit for racing during such a long and sustained period? Something, though, could be attempted.
My suggestion is a six-day roving festival taking in three, four or five different racecourse, each within easy distance of one another. To give an example, Stratford, Worcester, Warwick, Ffos Las and Aintree. Yes, Aintree.
The three days at Stratford, Worcester and Warwick could be labelled a ‘Midlands Festival of racing’, with a good quality handicap as the main feature on all three days or evenings, which might be preferable. Ffos Las could serve up a two-day Welsh Festival of racing, a mixture of flat and jumping. With perhaps the feature races high-end flat handicaps. The sixth day, though, is the bright spark that illuminates the whole. A proper Summer National.
Overall the modifications to the Grand National have proved greatly beneficial to the image of the race. I absolutely loved it this year when thirty-seven horses were still standing going on to the second circuit. What I remain critical about, though, is that horses get into the race on account of a handicap mark attained six or twelve months beforehand whilst proper Grand National horses fail to get into the race. I ask you, which of Blow By Blow or Milansbar had a better chance of jumping round this year? The drive for a higher standard of horse, along with other tweaks, have denied the Grand National the romance that was once synonymous with the race. No longer is there any Corinthian spirit through the likes of the Duke of Alburquerque or the more successful Tommy Smith. No horses trained outside of Britain and Ireland. No permit-trained winners as with Grittar. My suggestion will not directly address these omissions to the great race but might at least provide an opportunity for a Spanish Duke of an American timber rider to compete again. Perhaps even another Fujino-O.
A thirty runner Summer National, run over the full Grand National course would give the likes of Milansbar, good old warriors that stay and jump, an opportunity to prove themselves to the handicapper and have their handicap mark raised come February when he is drawing up the weights for the big race. Also, and I think this is, irrespective of my overall idea, an idea whose time has come, the winner of the Summer National, and the Becher Chase in November, should gain automatic entry into the Grand National, no matter what handicap mark they have. For certain races, ‘win and you are in’ is a no-brainer.
In Ireland they see no distinction between the flat and jumping no matter what time of year it is. Just because it is the summer months it does not disallow jumping a slice of the limelight and that should be the attitude over here. A Summer National will not pull 70,000 people to Aintree as it would in April, though marketed correctly half that number may not be impossible to achieve. Schedule attractive racing and the people will come.
Now, I am not as stupid as I may seem. There is great cost involved in dressing the Aintree fences and in July or August there might be a problem sourcing the right materials. And then sponsors will be needed to found, and the B.H.A., not the most adventurous of authorities, would have to be persuaded. Faith, though, can move mountains, so I am led to believe. Good old Faith!
To be successful at anything, be that sport or business, and horse racing is both, the greatest assets must be utilised to the nth degree. Aintree, its iconic fences, summer evening racing, must have a better chance of success than three sprints up a city street or daft team events that are not representative of the sport in any sort of way. Galway expect 140,000 people to attend its seven-day festival, with its 2-million-euro prize money pot. Whether similar attendances and prize money is too great an expectation only time will tell. But I would hope someone of influence or microphone will read this piece and put it out there for debate.

​Before I relate my views on the above, yesterday’s Epsom Derby. To the annoyance of the majority, I suspect, I am loathed to read from the authorised hymn sheet, refusing, as I do, to accept the Epsom Derby as ‘the greatest horse-race on planet Earth’. It is, without doubt, the most famous horse-race on planet Earth, and with the longest history of all other contenders around the world. But it is, when all said and done, a race run on a very difficult racecourse for immature three-year-olds, many of whom will not necessary gain any benefit from participating in the race. Yesterday’s race was, though, a magnificent spectacle, perhaps the race of the year. And one other matter concerning the Epsom Derby, and which should be debated by the media is the paucity of runners. If a virus had hit Ballydoyle in the days and weeks leading up to Epsom, there might have been only six runners this year. We must remain eternally thankful Coolmore are prepared to prop-up the reputation of the race.
 
There is a goodly amount of concern in official racing circles and in the media on the topic of racecourse attendance and t.v. viewing figures. The latter score does not bother me unduly. The figures the B.B.C. achieved when they televised the majority of the racing output are an erroneous benchmark as they did not have to contend with either racing devoted channels or on-the-go viewing via mobile phones and other electronic devices. I am pretty sure if you added together I.T.V.’s viewing figures with those achieved by the other methods people can watch racing these days the total would not be too far short of ‘the halcyon days of the B.B.C.’.
Attendances on the racecourse are a different kettle of fish and I believe the month of June is nothing short of a hindrance when it comes to marketing the sport as a pleasant outdoor activity for all the family. The problem is the morning suit and the image the wearing of such an outfit at outdoor event propels into the minds of possible attendees.
If you asked Joe Public, and perhaps an independent survey should be conducted on the High Streets of Britain to slay or bring credence to my theory, on the image horse racing brings to mind, Royal Ascot would figure highly in peoples’ answers. Now, Joe Public may not necessarily conflate code of dress for Royal Ascot with a day’s racing at other racecourses, or even Ascot away from the heady month of June, but in this day and age, when casual has come to mean jeans and t-shirt, Royal Ascot and Derby Day does racing no favours when it comes to attracting new people to the sport.
I am not suggesting for a moment that Royal Ascot should be banished from the calendar. It is a magnificent race-meeting, the five-days of flat racing that come closest to the Cheltenham Festival and the Grand National for meaningful racing. But Royal Ascot is not representative of British racing. The highlighting of the glamour and the outlay required to acquire that glamour sets in viewers minds a perception of racing as a sport for the fabulously wealthy and not for the likes of you and us.
I have seen nothing more ridiculous than a hard-working I.T.V. cameraman having to wear morning dress, no doubt for no other reason than he would not be allowed into the ‘posh’ enclosures if he did not comply with the dress code. I am for retaining standards but common-sense should be applied to all situations. Surely ‘smartly dressed’ should be sufficient.
And where is the equality of the sexes if women can wear clothes to fit the weather, with boundless choice of fabrics and clothes, whereas men are bound hard and foot to tails, waistcoat and top-hat! The I.T.V. presenters at Epsom and Royal Ascot look like they are playing hookey from a society wedding, not reporting on a major sporting event.
As I have said many times, and will doubtless repeat myself hundreds of times into the future: horse racing is a working-class sport underpinned by the rich and the fabulously verging on the obscenely rich. Portraying the sport, and marketing it, as an entertainment for the upper classes, for the mega-wealthy of the world, with champagne as an obligatory factor, does horse racing no favours. Owners may sign the big cheques that buy and keep in training the equine talent but without the blood, sweat and tears (literally) of the men and women who care for and train horses there would be no sport. This is a working-class sport and if this fact was put into the public domain the image of racing as a sport for ‘nobs’ would be erased and attendances would increase. Of course, free entry into all enclosures would also help.
Perhaps if I.T.V. were to focus more on the work of stable staff during Royal Ascot week and less on the clothes-horses who are nothing but walking endorsements and advertisements for hat and dress designers the sport might be seen for what it truly is. A sport for you, me and the man on the Clapham Omnibus.